Chapter 22
DELILAH
The bookstore is warm, but my fingers still ache.
Not from the cold—just that dull, tight stiffness that settles in when you’ve walked too far, too fast, on too little sleep and too many thoughts.
I drop my bag behind the counter and wince. I’m sore. Not in a bad way—just in a way that makes it impossible to forget where I woke up this morning. What I did. Who I did it with.
“Long morning?” Mr. Abernathy asks, not looking up from the window display.
“Something like that,” I say, and I’m so, so grateful he doesn’t push. Because how the hell am I supposed to explain this?
That I slept with someone and actually felt something.
That I didn’t want to leave.
That I liked him. Not just the fooling around, not just the flirting, but the time with his friends. The way he made space for me without asking me to be anyone but myself.
I slide behind the counter and pull up the inventory log, fingers flying over the keyboard like muscle memory.
Barcodes. ISBNs. Column alignment.
Order.
Control.
Focus.
I tell myself I did the right thing. I left before it got complicated. Before either of us said anything we couldn’t take back.
Not like waking up tangled in someone else’s sheets, surrounded by warmth I didn’t know how to stay in.
I lie at my mid-morning break. Say I’m heading out for labels and packaging tape.
What I actually do is walk down to the campus supply shop and buy a toothbrush.
Just one of the cheap ones. It reminds me of the way my stomach twisted when I stood in Troy’s bathroom and saw his toothbrush sitting there, and realized using it would mean something.
And I don’t do meaning. I don’t do intimate.
Not with anybody who might stick around, or who might pretend to.
I used to pack my whole life in one bag every weekend. School, work, groceries, chasing my mom around to make sure the bills were paid. I got good at moving. Fast. Quiet. Self-contained.
What I felt last night—that was the opposite of all those things.
I stare at my phone for a full minute. Then flip it over, screen-down.
If Troy texted, I’ll spiral. If he didn’t, I’ll spiral anyway.
I decide to text Lacey to try to calm said spiraling.
do you text a guy after he gives you a borderline religious orgasm
asking for a friend
Lacey
okay I’m calling you, you better answer bitch
I am at work
Lacey
I don’t care. Go on a break
The shop is empty and Mr. Abernathy has left for the afternoon letting me lock up again. I answer when Lacey’s name pops up.
“I don’t think I want to talk about it,” I answer.
“Babe.” Lacey’s voice is suspiciously calm. “You don’t message for emotional support and then pretend it didn’t happen.”
I press the phone to my ear and drop my forehead to the counter. “It was one time. One very stupid, very intense time.”
“Who was it?”
“No.”
“Delilah.”
“Nope. I’m not telling you because then you’ll tell Brianna and Chloe and they will spontaneously combust. You cannot tell them. Promise me.”
A gasp. “You hooked up with someone we know.”
I groan. “Just promise you won’t say anything.”
“Fine. I swear.” She waits. And I crack.
“It was...Troy.”
There’s a long, scandalized silence.
“As in Troy Hawkins? Your partner in the Future Innovators? The guy you swore you hated?”
“Ugh, don’t say it like that.”
“I have to say it like that. It's how it sounds!”
“We didn’t plan it. It just... happened.”
She’s quiet again and then whispers, “Did you like it?”
I swallow. My voice drops. “That’s the problem.”
Lacey exhales on the other end of the line. “Look… if it were me? I’d probably text him right away. But that’s me.” Her tone softens. “You don’t do things halfway, Del. You’ve gotta decide: Do you want this to be a thing, or not?”
I close my eyes. My throat tightens.
“He’s not who I thought he was.” The words come out before I can second-guess them. “He’s kind. Like… really kind. He cooks. He listens. He’s stupidly smart. He says these things that catch me off guard, and—” I stop. Swallow.
“But?” Lacey prompts, gently.
“But how do I trust him?” I whisper, keeping an eye on the door making sure nobody comes in. “How do I trust that it’s not just a game or a phase or something he’ll forget in a week?”
Lacey says, so simply it knocks the breath out of me, “You don’t. You just have to choose to believe it.”
“That’s terrible advice.”
“It’s the only kind there is.”
Lacey’s still quiet on the other end of the line when the bell over the front door jingles.
I jump like I’ve been caught doing something illegal.
A woman steps inside, balancing a coffee in one hand and a kid on her hip. The toddler’s holding a sticky toy dinosaur and immediately starts making it stomp across the top of the returns bin.
“Crap,” I whisper. “Gotta go. Customer.”
“Wait—are you okay? Delilah—”
“I love you! I’ll text you later,” I mutter, and hang up before I can change my mind.
I slide the phone face-down again and force myself into motion, moving toward the front with my best neutral smile and bookstore voice.
The mom asks if we have the new release from that parenting psychologist with the pastel covers.
I nod, because of course, we do, and because answering questions is so much easier than thinking.
Back at the counter, I sip lukewarm tea and try to settle back into the rhythm.
Textbook returns. Barcodes.
He’s probably already moved on.
Troy Hawkins doesn’t seem like the type to dwell. He flirts like it’s instinctive. For all I know, he made breakfast and fed it to someone else before I even got across town.
That thought shouldn’t sting but it does.
Troy is surrounded by people who love him easily. Freely. Without strategy or restraint. He gives pieces of himself without making them feel heavy.
Meanwhile, I’ve been hoarding myself like a finite resource.
Because when you've spent your whole life taking care of other people, you learn early that no one’s going to do it for you.
So I built a system. Boundaries. Rules. Don’t need anyone. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t get soft. Lacey is the only exception to that.
Maybe you can have another exception.
And last night? Whatever that was?
It doesn’t fit.
People like me don’t fall in love. We just learn how to survive it.
I breathe in slowly, exhale even slower, and click back into the spreadsheet.
My phone buzzes.
I glance at the screen.
Hawk the dork
what are your thoughts on pickles in sandwiches?
I stare.
Then exhale through my nose. Trying—and failing—not to smile.